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Susan Kramer (Richmond Park) (LD):
May I ask a very parochial question? Will the hon. Gentleman speak to his colleagues in Hammersmith and Fulham and ask them to ensure that the policing teams stop
crime, instead of encouraging criminals to cross the bridge into Barnes, which is in my constituency? That pattern of behaviour is driving those on our side of the river absolutely insane.
Nick Herbert: If the experiment is successful, perhaps other boroughs will decide to invest some of their resources in the people’s priority—reducing crime—rather than complaining about experiments.
Justine Greening: May I bring my hon. Friend back to his original comments about policing numbers? An interesting article in “Metline”, the London police officers’ magazine, says that following increased investment in the US in homeland security, many states that had seen a decline in crime have experienced a dramatic rise. That suggests that a change in resources for the front line can move the trend both ways. Crime goes down when there are more officers, but up when there are fewer.
Nick Herbert: My hon. Friend’s point gives us a warning. With the honourable exception of those people who do not seem to support an increase in the number of police officers on the beat, hon. Members will have to ensure that neighbourhood policing is anchored, with its resources sustained and police officers remaining in position. Given funding pressures, the frozen Home Office budget and calls to increase spending on security, as has happened in the United States, there is a danger that neighbourhood policing will not be anchored. Enhancing local accountability is therefore important because it is one of the most potent ways of ensuring that people get the officers on the beat whom they are entitled to expect. They have wanted that for a long time, even though national politicians were slow to catch up with the idea.
People believe the simple truth that officers on the beat not only reassure communities, but reduce crime. There is now empirical evidence from this country to support that view. After 7/7, officers were transferred from some outer London boroughs to inner London so that people could be reassured by additional police officers on the streets. The transfer resulted in a big drop in crime in those inner London boroughs. That demonstrated to the establishment, which had denied people for so long the increased officer numbers on the streets that they wanted, that more officers were an important factor in reducing crime.
Ms Buck: The hon. Gentleman says that he is in favour of local accountability as a means of anchoring neighbouring policing, but he said earlier that he was unhappy with the idea of Londoners having to share the cost of additional policing. Is it possible to support local accountability while simultaneously opposing local financial accountability?
Nick Herbert: The hon. Lady misunderstands me. I was making an argument about value for money and pointing out that the increase in resources that is claimed for London has largely been funded by London taxpayers and council tax payers. They want a return on their investment. Value for money in our public services is an important concept to which we Opposition Members subscribe, even if the hon. Lady does not.
The fact is that London remains a high crime area, although we may have arguments about statistics. I would say to the Minister that I believe, and we have formally proposed, that the time has come to put the publication of the statistics on an entirely independent basis. The Statistics Commission criticised the Home Office for the way it spins the figures that are produced, but we should also consider the fact that there are two different measures of crime. The British crime survey is valuable in some respects but problematic in others because it does not measure key crimes. There is also the problem of the trading and spinning of statistics once they are published by the Government. That makes it difficult for everyone—Members of the House, commentators and, most of all, the public—to know what is really going on. If we are to measure the performance of police forces fairly, we should have robust and independently produced measures of crime in which we can all have confidence.
We propose that responsibility for the figures be taken out of the Home Office and given to an independent body. That would assist us greatly in debates such as today’s, and it would enable Members of all parties to make points without the basis of their claims being challenged. Let me tell hon. Members a few home truths about crime in the capital city which cannot be disputed. There is 30 per cent. more crime in London than there is nationally. We might expect that in a capital city with a large concentration of people and a great deal of economic activity, but people are also 30 per cent. more likely to be mugged in the capital than they are in the rest of the country. That is despite the fact that there are far more police officers in London. The average population per officer outside the capital is 372; in London it is 239, or, to be fair, 262 if we allow for the commuters who travel into London every day.
As we heard, the detection rate in the Met has improved in recent years, and, in fairness, that is a significant improvement and should be welcomed. It is good news, if the fact that 78.9 per cent. of crimes are undetected can be classed as good news. However, it remains the case that the Met’s detection rates are consistently worse than those of other metropolitan police forces, even though crime levels and trends across urban forces are similar. That is an important discrepancy that we should debate. Greater Manchester police’s detection rate is more akin to the national average of 24 per cent., and that is significantly higher than the rate in London.
I welcome the improvement in the Met’s detection rates, but we should be cautious about how that improvement has arisen. There are two particular concerns that I shall draw to the House’s attention. First, it appears that an increase in sanctioned detections has been achieved partly through a significant increase in the number of cautions issued by all forces, including the Met. For example, in London last year the police issued more than 14,000 cautions for serious crimes, including assault, robbery, burglary, car crime and hard drugs offences. The cautions were then counted as sanctioned detections, enabling the police to claim that their performance has improved, but I doubt very much whether the victims of those crimes would consider the offenders to have been really been brought to justice.
The second way that forces may be improving detection rates is by considerably increasing the number of penalty notices for disorder that are issued. I do not have to hand the figures on the number issued in London, but there has been a significant increase nationally, so I can confidently say that there will have been a big increase in the proportion locally, and that may well correspond with a falling-off in the number of offenders brought to justice who are accounted for through convictions in court. If we consider that half of those penalty notices are not actually paid, in the first instance, by the person who has been given the fine, it is deeply questionable whether penalty notices should count towards the number of offenders brought to justice at all. Some of those enforcement tickets are being used to deal with matters such as serial shoplifting, although it is quite inappropriate for them to be used in that way.
Mr. Evennett: My hon. Friend is making a powerful case— [Interruption.] If Labour Members will listen, they will find that it is a powerful point. In my constituency, people feel that offenders are not being brought to justice, and although the figures that have been published are going down, people feel that criminals are not being punished, and are getting away with it. That is the point that my hon. Friend is making powerfully.
Nick Herbert: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I agree with what he says. The Labour Members who appear to be disagreeing need to tell me whether they think that someone who is given a penalty notice for disorder and a fine for an offence, and then does not pay that fine, should count as an offender brought to justice, because that is what is happening. If we were victims of those crimes, however minor they may seem, would we be happy for them to be accounted for in that way? Yet that is one way that forces are increasing their detection rates, so there is a distortion.
That distortion emanates from one of the biggest problems affecting policing: the increasing amount of central direction and the increasing number of targets placed on the police, as on other public services. Those targets and the excessive reporting that goes with them damage morale in police forces. They also make the police perform to targets and undertake what they might otherwise think were not particularly valuable policing activities. Fishing for easy detections, as opposed to tackling more difficult offences, is exactly that kind of distortion. Before we debate the issue again, we need figures that demonstrate what proportion of the increase in detections amounts to offenders being brought to justice, and what proportion is accounted for by administrative devices. Without the figures, it is difficult for us to judge.
I welcome not only the specific falls in crime in the Met area in the past few years, but the recent improvements in trust and confidence in the Metropolitan Police Service, as measured by its opinion surveys. Those are important, too. However, the fact is that more than a quarter of Londoners still do not feel safe walking alone in their area after dark. Four out of 10 Londoners do not have confidence in London policing, and they do not feel that the police do a good or excellent job. Some 12 per cent. have a fear of violence in their local area.
We may say, “That is only 12 per cent.,” and of course it is perfectly possible to put the figure the other way round and say that the overwhelming majority of people do not have a fear of violence, but it still means that there are 900,000 people in our capital living in fear of violence, and that is unacceptable. That suggests that reversing the high tide of crime remains a fundamental challenge for the Met, and the commissioner was unwise to suggest last year that people now leave their doors open because they feel safe in a way that they have not done for 25 years. Frankly, to put it as kindly as possible, that was a little previous.
Justine Greening: Certainly, in my constituency, people do not feel safe leaving their doors open. I assume that the statistics that my hon. Friend just read out about people’s attitudes do not include information gained by interviewing children who are 16 and under. We know that a huge number of the victims in London are secondary school children, and presumably, had statistics on children been included, the facts would have been much more negative.
Nick Herbert: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and one reason why there is a problem with the British crime survey, and other surveys that interview adults and not children, is that so much crime, particularly robbery, is committed against younger people, and we are not picking that up. That is obviously a problem.
Robert Neill: Is not the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) made about young people reinforced by the fact that the deputy Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who stood in for the commissioner at the last Metropolitan Police Authority meeting, provided members with information that there had been a worrying increase in the number of cash-in-transit robberies and a movement away from snatches? In particular, concern was expressed that more young people are involved in cash-in-transit robberies, rather than the snatching of mobile phones that took place in the past. In other words, they are snatching more valuable property, and does that not cause concern that we are failing to capture the full extent of the involvement of younger people, for all the reasons set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert)?
Nick Herbert: That is an interesting point. One aspect of performance in relation to crime in the past year about which we should be concerned is the increase in robbery. The Met, to be fair, drew attention to that itself. My hon. Friend is right that a big component of that increase relates to cash in transit, not personal robberies. It is often characterised as crimes such as the snatching of mobile phones and so on, but it can be crimes against businesses that result in harm to employees. It is something about which the security industry is increasingly concerned, and it probably merits a separate debate in future, because specific action may need to be taken. In particular, those crimes against businesses need to be recorded separately so that we can monitor what is going on.
Mr. McNulty:
Next week or the week after, a substantive conference will be held at which banks, individuals involved in the security industry, and,
importantly, local authorities will come together. I would be very happy to make sure that Members who have participated in our debate and have expressed concern about cash and valuables in transit receive a record of the outcome and any subsequent actions.
Nick Herbert: I am grateful to the Minister. I think that I recall receiving an invitation to the conference, which I hope to attend. As ever, I look forward to his contribution.
Simon Hughes: The hon. Gentleman was about to complete his sweep of different types of crime, but may I just ask him whether he agrees that there is a worrying trend? It is apparent not just in London but in other places—it is, however, absolutely clear in London—that the crimes that have gone up in the past 10 years and are most worrying are all violent crimes: murder, gun-enabled crime, robbery, violence against the person and rape. There will be an endemic problem in our society if we do not turn that around, as the problem of more people being more violent more often is afflicting both London and the rest of the country.
Nick Herbert: The hon. Gentleman is right. The fall in many crimes, as the Minister conceded, was expected because of technology, but the increase in other crimes, such as mugging, is particularly serious and worrying for the public. The fact is that the Government knew that that was going to happen, because a strategy document produced by the Prime Minister’s strategy unit in December 2002 noted that London had a particular problem with mugging and street crime. It noted that mugging occurred principally in 10 London boroughs—the figure is 60 per cent.—and that an increase in violent crime was likely. We should have seen that coming to a greater extent than we have done, but everyone in the House would concede that the solution to the problems does not lie just with the police. I agree with much of what the Met commissioner said in his interview in The Guardian this morning, and that the solutions are wider than a simple question of enforcement. Enforcement is important, as, of course, are sufficiently robust penalties, which the Government have now accepted in relation to knife crime. Police officers on the streets are important, but what is going on has wider societal implications, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has constantly tried to impress upon us. The solutions lie in what the Prime Minister used to want to discuss—the causes of crime—so the point made by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) is well made. I suspect that we will be preoccupied with the issue a great deal in the next few months.
I have been talking largely about the importance of getting police officers on to the streets, and I welcome the fact that, in London, the development of neighbourhood policing teams funded by Londoners, with one sergeant, two police constables and three police community support officers in 630 wards has been rolled out ahead of schedule. In 87 wards, the number of PCSOs will increase further, which is important if we are to develop the kind of policing that the public want and that operates successfully in Chicago, for instance, as I have seen for myself in the Chicago alternative policing strategy, on which much of this is modelled. There is still a problem with the
visibility of police officers, and the survey to which the Met and Metropolitan Police Authority drew attention shows that, astonishingly, it is still the case that less than half of London’s population see a uniformed presence on the streets every week.
The development of neighbourhood policing must address that problem. One way in which we can ensure the effectiveness of neighbourhood policing teams is to take a resolute—and, I propose, steely-eyed—look at the effectiveness of PCSOs and what they do. PCSOs are an important development and component of neighbourhood policing teams. I understand the reason why PCSOs should not have certain powers—it is to avoid their abstraction into police stations and to maintain a constant presence on the streets—but it is important that people see PCSOs engaging with them. There are specific problems to which commanders are alive and that need to be addressed. For instance, is it really necessary for PCSOs always to patrol in pairs? The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, proposed at one point that there should be proximity policing so that police officers and PCSOs could patrol on either side of the street. They would still be in safe reach of and each other, not only would that effectively double the police presence on the streets but it would encourage them to engage with the community much more. Given that the Government have legislated to allow greater powers to be given to PCSOs, we will have an ongoing debate about the extent to which PCSOs should be given greater powers to make them more useful while avoiding their being taken back into police stations.
That leads me to reform. In the past, we tended to have a debate about the need to increase the visible police presence on the streets, thinking that that purely involved an increase in resources and the hiring of more police officers. All political parties fell into the trap of believing that that was the only way of increasing the presence of police officers on the streets. However, a considerable diversion of police officer time as a result of the bureaucracy and the way in which they have to record and process crime confronts the police.
Ms Butler: It is part of the accountability process.
Nick Herbert: Accountability does not have to be bureaucratic. The fact that, on the Government’s own figures, police officers spend more time filling in forms than they do on patrol is a problem, and I thought that it was understood by Members on both sides of the House.
Mr. Khan: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way—he has been generous in accepting interventions. Does he not accept that one reason why there were so many miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and ’80s was the lack of paperwork by police officers? One reason why there are far fewer miscarriages now and why the public have more confidence in the police is the paperwork that they have to fill in, whether it is notebooks, the paperwork for the transfer of a prisoner from a cell to a custody suite, or interviews that are recorded. Those are some examples that protect the police from allegations of miscarriages by the public.
Nick Herbert: I would caution the hon. Gentleman against making the argument that all the paperwork is essential to ensure the proper operation and monitoring of what the police do. We all agree that there should be transparency and accountability in officer performance. The introduction of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, for instance, was an important development in ensuring that that took place. However, much of the paperwork that has been generated is not about that—it is about reporting back to central Government to fulfil the requirements of central targets, policing plans and so on. It is not just me saying that—it is the police. That is the first element that we need to address.
Massively inefficient processes are operating in police stations. The hon. Gentleman mentioned police officers filling in notebooks and forms. Several forces, including the Met, have very disjointed IT systems, so that officers have to key in data repeatedly. That is examined in detail in the latest policy document published by the Conservative party’s police reform taskforce, which maps out the various obstacles to efficient working. To be fair, the Government have recognised this too. Although they have constantly over the past 10 years promised bonfires of regulation, they now seem to understand that the additional bureaucracy that is being created is deeply damaging to the morale and effectiveness of police officers and needs to be taken on. I understand that that will be part of what Sir Ronnie Flanagan will look into, and I welcome that.
The danger is that for as many forms that are cut by anti-bureaucracy taskforces and so on, more are introduced. The Met’s own anti-bureaucracy taskforce claimed to have abolished 100 forms in the past 12 months, but admitted that a further 135 had been created. The Government have introduced a new form—the stop form—which, because of the time that it takes to complete, has created a significant impediment to the police’s ability to stop people. Once such things are introduced they are much harder to sweep away. We have said that we will not keep the stop form, because it is a serious impediment to efficient police performance, but will keep the stop-and-search form.
Mr. Slaughter: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that 75 per cent. of neighbourhood policing teams’ time is spent on visible community policing? Although that figure could be better, he is somewhat behind the times in his approach. Does he agree with what my local Conservatives, with whom he seems to be very much in bed, are saying about stopping the reporting of stop and search in order to reduce bureaucracy? Surely that is a dangerous route to take. In the name of opposing bureaucracy, they are removing checks that were introduced for a very good reason.
Nick Herbert: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. Even patrol officers are spending more time on paperwork than they are on patrol. Neighbourhood policing teams consist in half part of police community support officers, who are not having to do all this reporting.
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